Couples in conflict
Subtitle: a family systems approach to marriage counseling
By: Ronald W. Richardson
Publisher: Fortress Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 249
ISBN-13: 9780800696283
Subjects: Pastoral counseling; Marriage counseling; Systemic therapy (Family therapy)
Description: "Perhaps no single issue is of greater importance for families in Western culture than the one of marital conflict. When couples fail to successfully negotiate the emotional difficulties of their relationship, it can lead either to years of unhappiness within the marriage or to the breakdown of the marriage and to divorce. Unhappy couples negatively affect their families and even their communities. Couples in Conflict describes the nature of the emotional processes leading to marital difficulties and how a minister or counselor can be a resource to help couples in conflict. The minister/counselor will be able to help them improve their lives personally, as well as their relationship and family life. By extension, couples will also develop skills that will improve their work life and their life in community. The book provides practical and specific approaches to helping these couples and the issues that a minister must deal with in order to be useful to them."--Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: A new way of caring; title: Emotional systems; title: Anxiety and the emotional system; title: Differentiation of self; title: Triangles; title: The emotional development of a couple and a family; title: Symptomatic mechanisms; title: The counseling relationship in the Bowen theory; title: Getting started and assessing the couple; title: Goals for the counseling process; title: Addressing the triangles in counseling; title: The counseling process : beginning phase; title: The transition to middle-phase counseling; title: The counseling process : middle phase; title: Coaching family-of-origin work; title: The counseling process : the termination phase.